A couple of days ago, I finally found the answer to the question that I had been pondering about for many years: “What is national?” Do you know how I found the answer? Guess. No, I did not get it from the Matenadaran, the History Museum, and not in any of Charents’s works. My friend invited me to the “Yergir” restaurant three days ago and it was in the basement of that restaurant where I found out about the “national”.
The basement is arched, the right side of the basement represents the Armenian provinces, mossy rocks showing no signs of human life, a lamb and goat which are probably pastured by a telepathic shield. This is the right side. The right side, if of course, you are sitting in front of the canvas in the far end of the arched hall where you can see how Gevorg Chaush is looking at you with his foot on the rock….(probably looking towards Europe).
While I was checking out the scenery, I heard an orchestra behind me and the singer starting singing with a sweet voice: “Yelir Dashnak Dro” (Rise Federalist Dro). The song ended and there was a pause…Five minutes later the orchestra started again: “Yelir Dashnak Dro”. A funeral march with a grandiose intonation followed the second performance, which sounded like a commander who had suffered a historical, cosmopolitan and/or accident and was being buried into the ground. The repetition of the words “Ichav gerezman” (he was buried) sounded like the process of installing a video player. If they take into account the fact that you are sitting at that moment, it doesn’t matter; the person getting buried will come face to face with the underworld. Even the famous Americans who created so many attractions would dream about having these types of effects.
After two or three unsuccessful tries of playing the song Dashnak Dro, the orchestra performed the famous Armenian national song called “Partezum vart er batsvel” (A flower blossomed in the garden). This lyrical song put everything in place. “Yes, yes to our new constitution,” I thought. “But what does the new constitution have to do with this song?” the person reading this will ask and will fall into a trap. Excuse me, but what does the new constitution have to do with the reality we are living in? If we really want to go deep into everything, then we can come up with a reason as to how the song and the constitution are connected, but the constitution and our reality don’t mix. For example, we can consider the European Union as the flower blossoming in the garden, which as you may remember, was waiting for the nightingale. The nightingale, on the other hand, is the “yes” that the Armenian people say to the new constitution. We can get another picture by animation. For example, the flower which has blossomed in the form of Johnny Bukikioy near one of the canals of Venetia notices that swarms of nightingales are coming towards him (I know that birds fly in flocks). As he pays close attention and studies each one, he notices that one of the nightingales is Tigran Torosyan with his flock of the Mountainous Armenian eagle, Shavarsh Kocharyan-confused like a canary bird, vultures and griffons ripped from the right side walls of the “Ergir” restaurant.
As for trying to tie the constitution with reality, that is really not going to work out because we are psychologically anti-constitutional. The elections which took place in Nor Hachn serve as proof of that. Electing a murderer as mayor, claiming that he knows how to take care of the city, contradicts our constitution aimed towards being European.
By electing the murderer as mayor, the voters are showing how ignorant they are towards the law, legality and the judicial system. Secondly, the voters do not realize one of the most important values of mankind-the right to live. Therefore, the people who justify the murder as a means of self-defense can be integrated into Africa and not even think about European values. Lastly, the people who think that the mayor has done them a favor by looking after the city, they don’t have the slightest idea that it is the mayor’s job and duty to look after the city and it is their right and duty to elect someone who is capable of doing the job. The Prime Minister, who gives a gun as a present, comments that the people know what they are doing.
These voters are the people who are going to participate in the constitution referendum on November 27. If those people have truly read the constitution and are honest, then they will say “no” because the things they know are not written in the constitution. But we can’t go too deep in this issue because the president of the Armenian Liberal Democratic Party Alexan Harutyunyan said the following in the October 12th issue of “Haykakan Zhamanak” (Armenian Times) daily: “…we need to say “yes” to the constitution. If we are part of the European Union, we must accept that constitution even though we haven’t really discussed it thoroughly.”
I respect Alexan Harutyunyan for being honest, but I just want to say that this next month and a half is not enough time to discuss an issue like this, especially when the time provided to Public Television and the other self-satisfying television channels for discussing the referendum has been given to the “Evening Cocktail”, “Bernard Show”, comedians Hayko and Mko and other entertainment programs.
Two days ago, I met with my good friend, prose writer and translator Samvel Mkrtchyan at “Artbridge” cafe. In response to my question of “What is going on?” he started talking about the third edition of the “Foreign Literature” journal this year. I started to flip the pages. “People who are stuck in something up until their throats still continue walking with their head above,” said Nobel Prize winner in literature Dario Foy and it was referred to by our compatriot, Canadian Armenian writer Ara Baliozyan.
As I continued reading Ara Baliozyan’s diary, I realized that all that he had written was about us. For example, “the goal of propaganda is to prove that the Big lie is the truth and nothing but the truth” or “Do you want to stay alive and remain Armenian? Just learn to say “yes, sir”.
While I was reading this, I was thinking to myself that our television channels would not, don’t and will not even invite people like Dario Foy and Ara Baliozyan to interviews in the near future because in the near future we will not feel the necessity for that. We will already have a constitution corresponding to European standards.